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This is why your website is failing: hide the pain Harold
People buy from people, not stock photos of people. Including Hide the Pain Harold.
▶Play the video: This is why your website is failing: hide the pain HaroldYour website might be failing because of stock photography. Specifically, because of Hide the Pain Harold.
We just fixed this for Glasscraft, one of the largest glass manufacturers in the UK. Their old website was a stock photo graveyard. They were so obsessed with looking professional they forgot their personality. So we told them to forget looking professional and look real.
Marketing Experiments found that using a photo of a real company founder boosted free sign-ups by 35%. And then there’s András, the stock photo model who became the Hide the Pain Harold meme. One man, hundreds if not thousands of stock photos. Use stock and you look like every other website using stock.
So we filmed Glasscraft’s processes, photographed their people, and put messy, brilliant humans all over the site. Two weeks after launch, visitors were spending an extra minute looking at their products. Glasscraft put it well: they’re a business built on relationships, so a faceless website would go against everything they stand for.
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Read the full transcript
Your website is failing because you're overusing stock photography, but it's nothing to do with just stock photography. It's got everything to do with hide the pain Harold. Let me explain. We've just fixed this exact thing on the glass craft website. They're one of the largest glass manufacturers in the UK, but their website, ooh, their website was a stock photo graveyard.
They were so obsessed with looking professional with stock photography that they forgot their personality. So, for the new website, we told them, "Fuck looking professional. Let's look real." But why did we tell them to ditch the stock photography? Marketing experiments found that when they used an image of a real company founder on their website, it boosted their free signups by 35%. But if you want more reasons, there is also this guy, too.
This is Andras. He's a stock photo model. He became very popular on the internet when he became an internet meme. Hide the pain Harold. Now, this one guy has hundreds, if not thousands of photos of him available on stock photography websites.
And that's the issue right there. Overusing stock photography means you look like every other website that's overusing stock photography. So, to fix this for the new Glasscraft website, we filmed their processes. We took photos of their people. We put messy, brilliant humans all over the website.
And the results just 2 weeks after launching their new website, we're seeing users spend an extra minute of dwell time looking at their products and deciding whether they want to purchase from GlassCraft. And Glasscraft also said this. Glasscraft are a business based on relationships. So to have a faceless online presence would go against everything that we stand for. But you know what zero of the clients said when they saw the new glass website?
Gee, I really wish this website had more stock photography on it. Why can't I see more generic photos of this organization? You know what? I really wish this company had more hide the pain Harold on its website because here's the punch line. People buy from people, not stock photos of people.
By the way, if you use any of these stock photos on your website that are flashing on the screen right now, get in touch with me and I'll help you make your website less